Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM DECEMBER 2024 25 DEFENSE HAD ROUGH OUTING BUT MADE PLAYS IN THE FOURTH QUARTER Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden was the first one off the bus at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Maybe that's always the case. Or maybe he knew his side of the ball was up against its toughest test of the season and he needed to be extra prepared and on his toes for it. Both could be true, but one thing is certain — the latter ultimately ended up a veracity. The USC Trojans piled up 35 points and 557 total yards on Golden's Fighting Irish defense, a unit that went into the ri- valry matchup rated as one of the best in the country in a plethora of metrics. The points total was a season high, with the previous mark sitting at 24. The yards accumulation was by far a season worst; none of Notre Dame's first 11 opponents even reached 400 yards of offense. When Notre Dame needed a play to be made the most, though, only lead- ing by a touchdown with time ticking down in the fourth quarter, it was the Irish defense that did the dang thing. Sophomore cornerback Christian Gray returned an interception 99 yards for a touchdown. On the very next USC pos- session, graduate student safety Xavier Watts followed suit with a 100-yard pick six of his own. There was that difference-making Notre Dame defense after all. "They're resilient," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. "They battled. They are never out of the fight. That's what you love about it, man — they compete until the clock hits zero." Gray's game arc was especially resil- ient. He spent much of the sunny Los Angeles afternoon chasing USC wide receivers around, often getting beat by them. But he broke up a pass on third down in the fourth quarter and then notched his timely touchdown. This wasn't one of those games you left thinking, "That No. 29, he's go- ing to be a great NFL cornerback some day." But it was one of those games when No. 29 kept lining up with intent to be disruptive, which is every single week for the second-year player out of St. Louis. "Reloading every time," Gray said of his mindset. "What Coach Freeman always says, 'Reload, reload, reload.' That's really what he said to me — 're- load, reload.'" Freeman was most proud of Notre Dame evening up the turnover margin. Notre Dame hadn't been negative in that area since Week 2 versus North- ern Illinois, which was infamously the Irish's only loss of the season. With the two pick sixes, USC and Notre Dame finished tied with two takeaways apiece. "I'm like, 'Man, this is going against everything I believe,'" Freeman said of winning in spite of a negative turnover margin. "I tell the team about how im- portant turnover margin is. Because we were up in the game and down two in the turnover margin. Then, you get a pick six. Now, you're down one. We get another pick six.'" We'll do the last bit of math for Free- man — now you're not down at all. In a game separated by a single score for much of the duration, evening that out was the difference. It shouldn't have been of any doubt this Notre Dame de- fense would find a way to do that. OFFENSIVE LINE MAULS USC, PLAYS BEST GAME YET Eve ry t i m e t h ey wa l ke d o f f t h e field, Notre Dame's offensive line- men wanted more. They conveyed that message to their offensive coordinator, Mike Denbrock. "Keep running, Coach," they told Denbrock. "Keep running." Denbrock was happy to oblige them. Excluding an end-of-game kneel- down and 2 sacks for a combined loss of 9 yards, Notre Dame ran 35 times for 269 yards. That's 7.7 yards per carry, for those keeping track. The Irish also scored 3 times on the ground, one each for sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love, junior running back Jadarian Price and senior quarterback Riley Leonard. USC GAME NOTES BY TYLER HORKA AND JACK SOBLE The Fighting Irish defense surrendered season highs in points (35) and total yards (557) against USC, but made big plays — including graduate student safety Xavier Watts' 100-yard pick six — late in the game to give Notre Dame a hard-fought road victory against their archrival. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER